


Somewhere between the bullets and the tea, I fell in love

by carmenamatorium



Category: The Professionals
Genre: Episode: s04e06 Discovered in a Graveyard, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 13:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10572447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carmenamatorium/pseuds/carmenamatorium
Summary: Ray is released from hospital into Bodie's care.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to elfin for the super quick beta. Any remaining mistakes are all my own.

"Good job the lift’s working, eh?" Ray says, leaning against the wall in what is a clear attempt at his normal casual slouch.

"You’re a bit bloody heavy to carry up all those stairs." He tries to loosen his tight grip on the holdall, tries to find his smile again. This is Ray, alive, nearly home.

"I can walk!" He’s pale and a little sweaty round the hairline. The lift is small enough that he can't fall any way that Bodie can't catch him.

"Barely".

He will always try and catch him, whatever, whenever. He’ll never stop till one of them dies. He swallows hard and Ray is opening his mouth for another round of their eternal banter when the lift bumps to a stop and he automatically reaches out to ... protect, catch.

"I’m not an invalid!” 

"Sick note in my pocket says you are."

He follows the slightly unsteady gait towards the door, noting how the jacket hangs a little too loose on the shoulders now, and those jeans aren’t as skin tight as they used to be.

Christ he’s going to have to feed him up. Well he’s got that sorted.

"You never made this," Ray says between one spoonful of soup and the next.

Bodie gives him his best innocent smile.

"You didn’t. And this didn't come out of tin." Ray jabs the spoon towards him. "Don’t lie."

He shrugs, giving in easily.

"Your neighbour made it. Told her you were coming home today."

"Ellen? She made soup?"

"Ellen’s the snooty blonde?" He jerks his head to indicate the flat to the left and Ray nods. "God no. Mrs Campion."

Ray looks up and blinks and Bodie tries not to be surprised all over again at the green of his eyes.

"Mrs Campion made me soup? She hates me. Says I make too much noise coming in late at night."

"Must be my natural charm then." He might tell him about it sometime, sometime when Ray’s not drooping into a bowl of soup. "I bought the bread though. From that fancy bakery you like."

Ray is slowly mopping up the leftovers with the last of a buttered doorstep of brown bread, and Bodie is stupidly pleased to see that, given the way he’s been pushing the hospital food around the plate for the last week. He gets a grin for that. "Pretty girl who works there." Ray nods, still chewing. His lower lip is a little shiny with grease and Bodie wants to kiss him.

He gathers up the plates and puts the kettle on.

"Go and sit down. I’ll bring you a cuppa."

"I can ...."

"Not today you can’t."

He hears the slow steps on the wooden floor.

"Fuck!" 

He’s in the lounge in a second; he’ll mop the damn tea up later.

Ray is leaning forward, head bowed, elbows on his knees.

"Ray? What’s the matter?" His cool detached calm apparently deserted him the moment Ray Doyle was released into his care. He tries again. "What did you do mate?" He can’t recover as easily from the fact that he’s on his knees by the sofa. Going to have to get that under control.

"Tried to put my feet on the coffee table." Ray breathes noisily, swallows, puts a hand over his scar. Hell of a scar.

"Idiot." He gives the curls a light cuff. "How about putting them on the sofa?" Without waiting for an answer he busies himself with the laces he’d tied at the hospital with Ray whining all the time then too. This recovery lark isn’t going to be easy.

Bodie takes the weight of his legs and Ray gets himself comfortable, sinking back onto the soft cushions with a small sigh. His eyes are closed, his hands are shaking a bit and he’s as white as the bloody curtains. But not dead.

Bodie goes back to make a fresh cup of tea and clean up the previous one. By the time he brings it through Ray is flat out asleep, head turned to the side, mouth a little open. He allows himself the luxury of leaning on the door frame and looking, watching the slow, even rise and fall of that chest, the slight flexing of his fingers. Then he makes himself look at that damn patch of floor and then back at Ray on the couch. All better now.

He coughs a little on the tea and Ray stirs, lashes fluttering and then slips back into sleep.

It’ll be weeks before they’ll know if Ray will ever pass the fitness tests again. Bodie’s got £25 on less than four months. The doctors have said six. He doesn't care if it is six, could live with never as long as Ray is alive.

He tells himself to get a grip and goes to put a chicken in the oven. He follows the very detailed instructions to the letter and hopes that he won’t poison both of them.

He’s studying the instructions again (‘Take it out after 11/2 hours. Push the knife into the thickest part of the meat and then pull it out and press the flat side on the surface of the chicken where you have pulled it out. If the ....’) when he hears Ray moving around. By the time he comes into the kitchen, knuckling sleepily at his eyes, Bodie is sitting at the table reading the newspaper.

"Want some tea mate?" he says easily and makes for the kettle when Ray nods.

"Something cooking?"

"A chicken." He doesn't turn around.

"Someone been domesticating you while I’ve been in hospital?"

He’s ready for the shoulder nudge and doesn't spill the tea. "You need to eat and none of your girlfriends have shown up to do it. Sure you’ll get that sorted soon though."

He grins easily and hands over the mug, watching Doyle wrap his fingers round it in a search for warmth. His hair is damp where he’s washed his face and run his fingers through the curls. He still smells of the hospital, of the sterile world he's been living in.

"No date tonight Bodie?"

"Nah, not tonight." He’d made no plans, had put off a couple of girls who’d called and asked. He likes smart girls and they’d noticed the change in him, called him on it a couple of times in the last few weeks. He isn’t yet able to deflect on this particular subject, is still a little raw. It’ll heal into another scar soon enough and then he’ll be ok. 

Ray touches the back of his hand to his forehead and he manages not to jerk away. The skin is cool against his own.

"You sickening for something?"

He shrugs and steps back, grins. "I’m sure I can make arrangements if you have company coming ....?"

Ray looks at him, frowning a little as if he’s puzzling something out. The last thing he needs is Ray applying any of his intuition to the subject of his own lack of a date. 

But instead Ray shakes his head slowly and says "Going to take a shower."

When he"s gone Bodie sighs. Bloody revelations. Leaning over that theatre balcony, watching them unpick Ray's innards and then put them back together. He’s only blood and bone, just like himself. So what is it that makes him irreplaceable? He’d been so damn certain that he would fight and win. Instead Ray had balanced on that tightrope for days and he had found himself balancing too, tilting precariously on the edge of the realisation that he couldn’t fight, battling it every inch of the way. 

He sighs and picks up the instructions again. 

The chicken is a bit over cooked, which he’s sorry about, but it’s nice enough and not in the least pink so they’re probably both safe from food poisoning; Mrs Campion had been very clear on that particular point in her lengthy instructions. 

He’s managed baked potatoes and a salad and tries not to stare at Ray looking ridiculously blissful as he crunches a red pepper.

The portion had looked small on the wide white plate but Ray had at least eaten all of it and that’s a good start. 

"Thanks mate. I appreciate it." He's clearly weary again. It had been a good half hour after the water stopped running that he’d come through in loose pyjama trousers and a dark silky bathrobe wrapped tight enough to cover the scars on his chest. Bodie can remember watching the nurse’s steady hands tweezering out the hundreds of shards of glass and then the further surgery when they found the ones that couldn’t be tugged out and needed a scalpel.

He’s been buying milk in cartons for the last few weeks.

Ray doesn't even offer to wash up, even though he makes Bodie do it every time he cooks for him. It’s probably fair and he wouldn’t have let him anyway. He just sort of wanted the argument for the sake of things being normal again.

Instead he potters slowly in the now familiar kitchen and dries and puts away.

Ray is leaning on the doorframe, staring out into the street. The breeze is cool, probably too cold, but Bodie lets it be. He sits on the far end of the sofa and picks up the Guardian, turning straight to the sport section. 

After a while Ray shuts the doors and drifts to music centre, flicks slowly through the LPs and puts one on. He flicks a side light on in passing, touches his fingers to the stand where that damned thing had hung and then moves on, reacquainting himself with his possessions. Bodie, years of watching suspects in sideways glances, through half closed eyes, watches his partner. He notes the way his head is little bent forward, like it's too heavy, the way his left hand shifts as if to cover the scar and then falls away. 

The old Tom Waits album is slow and gentle; he can"t recall the name, but the voice is the sound of too much whisky and sadness and it seems fitting. He wants a drink. 

"Whisky?" Doyle asks and it makes him jump, wonder if he’d said it out loud. But they could always read one another.

He nods, watches him pour a large one and a much smaller one. He stands and Doyle hands him the larger of the two, swirling the amber liquid in his own glass.

"Thank you," Ray says, holding his glass out. He can see him trembling slightly with that tiny effort. 

He knows what the thanks are for, knows that Ray understands that it was him who found him, saved him.

"To partners," he counters and clinks his glass gently against Ray’s and takes a sip. He doesn't hold the look, although he wants to. He doesn’t ever want to stop looking. He’s tried to hide from this in the bottom of a decanter and it only gave him a bloody awful hangover and no respite from the reality. 

 

Ray is leaning against the open door to the balcony and the room is freezing because it’s November. There aren’t any lights on, just the raw sodium yellow of the street lamps. He opens his mouth to speak and stops because there are strains of music floating in across the cold damp air from another flat. It’s something slow and smooth, a liquid honey voice. Ella Fitzgerald singing about how much she loves Paris. How much she loves it because her love is near. He stands in the cold air and doesn't look at Ray or speak; studies the buildings opposite, thinks how vulnerable they might be standing here. There’s no light behind them. All right then, how vulnerable he is standing next to his partner.

There’s a crackle of the needle on vinyl and then the slow rhythm that makes him want to dance. So he does.

"Get off!" They’re the first words either of them have spoken since he arrived.

He doesn’t, just curves his hand a bit further round Ray’s waist, pulling him in closer, swaying him, singing, joking "You do something to me ...." It's more overdone Marlene Dietrich than Ella Fitzgerald. Ray shoves ineffectually against his chest, still with no real strength in his arms a month down the line, and he takes the opportunity to capture his right hand in a light grip. He reckons he could make himself let go if Ray pushes back again.

"You have the power to hypnotise me," he croons to the scowling face just inches away.

Ray’s fingers clench in his and then release and the hand on his chest slides up a little, fingers curling over his shoulder. He wishes he’d taken his jacket off, that he could feel it better. Ray’s eyes are closed, forehead creased still.

"Do do that voodoo that you do so well". Somehow he"s lost the mocking tone and his voice sinks to a murmur. 

Ray’s head tilts forward, rests on his shoulder, like someone has cut his strings, like he’s giving up and lets Bodie takes the weight of him. There’s a puff of warm breath on his neck and he can’t stop the shiver that Ray must feel as well because they’re so close.

He can't sing anymore, it can't be a joke anymore.

They sway in time with the easy rhythm, always in sync.

He thinks Ray must be able to feel the way his heart is slamming against his ribs.

He lets his hand slide up Ray’s back; the thin shirt seems barely warm enough against the cold room.

The song is slowing, drawing to a close and he doesn’t want it to stop. He feels Ray’s deep inhale against his palm where it rests just below that scar.

He swallows.

"’m not a girl Bodie."

Ray hasn’t pulled away.

"I know that mate." It’s meant to be the moment to step away. He can’t find his voice though, can’t find the easy banter so it comes out quiet, desperate. The tempo of the next song is different, faster. He should ....

Ray’s fingers are tight in his hair then and his mouth, oh Christ, his mouth finds Bodie’s in a kiss that isn’t tentative in the least.

Ray’s lips are soft even if the kiss is hard and he lets himself sink into the sensation because if this is real then it won’t last and he’s always tried to make the best of what he’s got at any one moment. He kisses back, taking everything Ray offers, opening at the merest touch of his tongue, greedy for him. His hand finds the denim clad arse of its own accord and he rests it on the curve and, only when there’s no protest, does he cup it gently and draw Ray’s hips in, closer so they touch from ankle to chest. Nails scrape lightly over his neck and he can’t hold back the moan of pleasure. He loves being touched there. He’s still gripping Ray’s hand, their fingers entwined now, and he wants to not stop. That beautiful curl of heat unfurls in his groin. He wants to ....

When Ray cups his jaw, holds him in place and draws back slowly he doesn’t want to open his eyes. He does it anyway. Faces him.

He’s being studied and he fights the urge to hide from that look of ... what? They’re still close, sharing air, Ray is still touching him. No one is getting punched.

"I ..." he says and stops. What can he say? The eyebrows lift a little, waiting.

"You...?" Ray says, but he’s smiling, there’s enough light for him to see that he’s smiling.

That smile, that’s pretty irresistible. Always has been. For years. He grins back and manages to let go of Ray’s arse so he can wind his fingers in his hair and tug a little.

"That was ... unexpected," he manages.

Ray huffs a small laugh.

"Yeah, maybe." He pauses. "Didn’t hear any complaints." The words are mocking but the tone is less certain. It's odd to hear Ray sounding unsure after the confidence of his kisses.

He kisses him again because there aren’t any words for how very little he wants to complain.

Ray is trembling and he thinks it’s with the cold, so he turns them a little to kick one door that’s letting in the autumn night closed. Ray takes the opportunity to back him up against it, kissing him hard, sliding a leg between Bodie’s which gives him something to grind against. The sensation makes him shudder.

"Like that do you?" Ray murmurs, kissing the side of his mouth, his jaw, nosing aside his shirt to kiss his collarbone.

He gets hold of those slim hips then and pulls him closer, shifting a little to get the angle just right, grinning when Ray groans in pleasure, grinning because they’re on the same page.

"About as much as you do."

When he tugs that thin shirt out and finally gets his hands on smooth skin Ray isn’t cold at all. He’s still trembling though. Bodie kisses him because he can, because he wants to, because he can’t seem to stop. He shrugs out of his jacket when Ray shoves at it but he has to stop kissing him to strip his holster off. He steps away and lays it on the table, double checking the safety. When he turns back Ray’s face is entirely in shadow and he wants to see him. 

"Let me ....". Ray turns and locks the doors and then bends to switch a small lamp on.

Bodie looks again at him, at the pinkness of his mouth, swollen from his kisses, and smiling. He waits, standing by the sofa, lets Ray come back to him.

He hopes they don't have to talk about this, not tonight. Tonight he doesn't want to think, he's done too much thinking.

"So are you going to come to bed with me?"

There’s a challenge in there, in the lift of his chin; it wouldn’t be Ray Doyle if there was no fight.

He wants to tease him a little but it’s far too soon and he’s afraid that if he does Ray won’t ever let him near again. 

"Sure?" He says instead and Ray pauses and looks at him.

He looks right back. He can’t step back from that. If they go to bed he’ll be in too deep and he’ll never be able to drag himself out to safety.

There’s concern in the heavy dark gaze and an assessment too, in the long moment of silence. He has to fight not to duck away from the look. Then Ray nods.

"Yeah Bodie, I’m sure."

Ray is so fucking brave.

He swallows and nods and can’t stop the grin, doesn’t want to.

"What are we waiting for?"

"You were having some sort of existential crisis." Ray takes his hand and tugs him towards the door. "Give me a few minutes...." his hand slides across Bodie’s fly, "... I'm sure I can fix that for you."

Bodie laughs for the first time in weeks and follows Ray through the doorway.


End file.
